The Scattered Remnant
by YuukiFairy
Summary: Desperate and on their own, survivors look for salvation outside the prison. Walled off temporarily from a world in chaos, they will have to re-define survival as they face new challenges. For some that will mean picking up the pieces of the past. For others, it will mean putting hope in an uncertain future.
1. Chapter 1

**_The Scattered Remnant_**

**_Chapter 1  
Prelude:_**

He was a risk. She knew that.

And she might have eliminated that risk a few months ago by turning her back on him. But she had changed, emerged from that dark cocoon she'd been trapped in like a half-formed butterfly.

For a long time she had existed like one of the walking dead herself. She had lost so much of herself just trying to survive, both physically and emotionally, that she had denied much of what made her human. But somehow she had found her way back, and she wasn't willing to give herself up, her true self, for anyone or anything again. And sometimes that meant taking risks.

The world wasn't a fair place. She had come to accept that. But it never had been fair. Nor had it been easy. No one knew that better than she did. Part of her healing had come with the realization that she could make choices. That she was not a helpless bystander in life.

So she watched over him. Even though he was near death. Even though she realized she might end up having to make some even harder decisions after all was said and done.

He didn't even know that she was there. How ironic that he had made his way here to her, and that she had been the one to save him. What would he say to her when and if he did wake up?

Where, Carol wondered, were all the others? If Rick was in this kind of shape, what had happened to them? They had been like family to her at one time. The man lying on the sofa before her had cut her off from that family. Without a chance of even saying goodbye. He had taken it upon himself to be her judge, jury and executioner. Laying guilt upon her that did not belong, because, as she had learned, he himself was flawed.

She wondered who could have beaten him like this. No walker had been responsible. Something terrible must have happened at the prison. The Governor again? Or someone else?

There were other survivors out there. All kinds of them. She had run across some of those herself. Then again, maybe Tyreese had found out- the truth. The truth always came out eventually. You couldn't hide from it forever. Even in this world.

She closed her eyes and thought about Sophia again. For a long time she had refused to grieve for her daughter. She had walled herself off from her own pain because it had seemed unbearable. But she eventually realized that she hadn't escaped the pain. She had only hidden from it.

"But healing," she whispered aloud to herself. "Comes in spite of ourselves."

It was true. It had been a long, difficult journey. A painful one. But she had found herself again.

The man lying on the sofa strained against the ropes. Even in his fevered delirium, he didn't like being tied down. He fought it. With a fury, at times, that alarmed her. She didn't know how many times she had sat watching him closely, not sure that he hadn't already died and turned.

She had carried anger in her heart for a long time, but she only pitied him now. She understood the demons that tormented him. She had walked through that dark place herself.

As she held a cool rag to his forehead, she spoke soothingly to him. A rumble of thunder rolled lingeringly across the sky, interrupting her words. Lightning flashed. A summer storm was gathering out in the darkness. A sudden, unexpected one. She needed to put containers out to catch some of the rain. They were running low on drinking water and you didn't have the luxury of slacking off. Not if you wanted to survive.

She shook her head as she rinsed the cloth in fresh water. "Why are you here alone, Rick?" she asked as she pressed the cloth to his battered face. "It doesn't make sense. Where is Carl? And Judith? Why aren't they with you?"

Perhaps the answers to her questions were not yet revealed, but she had come to believe that all things had a purpose. She was supposed to be here. Even now, there were things worth living for.


	2. Chapter 2 - 6

**_Chapter 2_**

For the past few days, he had lived like a hunted animal. Again. He hoped that some of the others had made it to safety. But there was no way of knowing how many might have survived. Wherever they were, no doubt they were living just like he was. Weakened, hungry and desperately trying to stay alive. Living from moment to moment. Helpless, some of them, still recovering from the sickness that had raged through the prison. They were a lost and scattered remnant of who they had once been. He didn't know how the youngest or the oldest would survive on their own. He had had some close calls himself. Too many of them.

Walkers were everywhere. How_ they_ survived so well, he didn't know. He didn't know why they didn't just die for good. They were half-rotten corpses. They should be in the ground. You could smell them when you got close to them, and anywhere they had been they left their stench. And he swore they were hungrier now than they used to be. But weren't they all?

He had been chased out of a shed by a group of them. And several houses. There simply was nowhere to hide that they did not eventually find him. There was no refuge where he could let his guard down. Even for a moment. He shook his head. How long had they lived like this? How long could they go on the same way? How long could _he_ go on until hunger and exhaustion claimed him?

Daryl shook his head as he contemplated that survival was a strong instinct. But it could be a brutal one, too.

He impatiently shoved the hair back from his forehead. He needed a haircut and a change of clothes. And what he wouldn't give for a hot bath. Hell, even a cold one. More than that, he needed food. He'd lived on roots and berries for two days now. Not very satisfying fare. He knew his need for nourishment was going to become critical soon.

He didn't know where Rick was. Or if he was even alive. The last time he'd seen him was with the Governor on the other side of the prison fence. Both men had been too caught up in their own battle to even see the walkers surrounding them. A lot of walkers. A whole damned field full of them.

They should have had a plan to meet up somewhere. Just in case. Yeah, they should have been better prepared. They should have been smarter. If they hadn't spent so much time fighting each other, maybe they would have seen to the more important things. But even a zombie apocalypse, it seemed, couldn't change human nature.

He thought about Carol out there on her own. Again. Was _she_ still alive? He couldn't bear the thought of her dying a horrible death all alone. Because that's what Rick had condemned her to. But _he_ had not forgotten her. She had come to mean too much to him. And now it was too late to tell her how he felt.

He should have headed out immediately and brought her back, Rick be damned. She had stood by his side when no one else had. And he? He had failed her. She must have thought that he had abandoned her, too.

He could still recall that gut-wrenching moment when Rick had informed him that she was gone. Rick couldn't look him in the face and he still thought that something wasn't right about the whole thing. He could feel it in his gut. He had meant to press Rick about it all, but then the attack on the prison had come and all anyone could think about was survival.

He came instantly alert. He heard snarling somewhere up ahead.

Damn. How many were there this time?

He had fought so many of them in the past few days that he was worn out with it. Just one more time, he thought wearily. And then he was going to lie down and get some sleep at the first halfway safe place he came to, even if it was on a rooftop somewhere in the cold rain. Because if he didn't, he was going to drop from exhaustion.

Over the next rise, he caught sight of the walker. There was a fishing pole lying on the bank of a small pond. And a tackle box. There were reeds along the edge of the pond and some water lilies floating on the surface of the water. It was a quiet spot. An idyllic scene like you might see on a postcard. A nice place to spend a lazy summer day and maybe have a picnic. Except you couldn't think about picnics these days. Because there was the walker. And his stench. You couldn't help but be aware of that.

The walker lunged at him when he got closer, waving his arms about wildly. He looked to see if the walker was stuck in the mud. And then he saw that it wasn't the mud that had trapped him. The walker had tall wading boots on. The boots were filled with water and they were weighing him down like two anchors.

He walked closer to the pond. Cautiously. There were cattails growing thickly along the shallows at the far side of the bank. He didn't know what might be hidden there. He thought briefly about picking up the fishing pole and trying to catch a fish for his dinner. But dusk was falling and there were storm clouds rolling in. He needed to find shelter. He knew from experience that it wasn't going to be an easy thing to do. And besides the flesh hanging from the walker and dragging along the surface of the pond didn't make the thought of a fish very appealing.

Over the next rise, he saw a barn. A big one. He eyed it carefully for a long time. You never could tell what might be inside. But he felt hopeful, too. Because if there was a barn, maybe there was a loft and he would be able to sleep safely for once, above any dangers. He hadn't seen any walkers yet. That was a miracle and right now he would take all the miracles he could get.

Half an hour later he was busting open a bale of clean, dry straw in the barn's loft. He was hungry. There was nothing he could do about that. But he could relax his vigilance. At least for a while. Tomorrow he would concentrate on finding something to eat.

The wind was starting to blow hard. It whistled like a banshee through the cracks of the barn and lifted some of the straw in the air. But after Daryl stretched out on the soft bed of straw, he fell asleep almost immediately, oblivious to the first heavy drops of rain that pattered down on the tin roof above him. He slept through the rest of that night, even as the wind-swept rain continued to beat loudly against the unpainted boards of the old barn.

An owl kept him company. And so did a cat. Maybe they, too, knew the wisdom of keeping to the loft and staying high above the ground.

**_Chapter 3_**

The three girls huddled closely together under the shelter of the old bridge. Rain was pouring down and Lizzie realized that the creek water had risen several inches in just a matter of minutes. They couldn't stay here. In no time at all the water would be high enough, and forceful enough, to sweep them downstream like they were tiny ants.

"Come on." She had to lift her voice above the sound of the rain. "We have to get out of here."

They began to climb the muddy slope that they had taken to get down under the bridge. The path was much more treacherous than it had been. They had to grab onto roots and branches to keep from sliding back down to the rapidly-rising creek.

Lizzie cried out when she grabbed hold of a tangle of thorns that cut deeply into her bare hands. For a while she had to work frantically to free herself. The effort exhausted her further, but eventually all three girls made it to the bridge.

Cold rain was beating down hard on their bare heads. Thunder was crashing. And lightning was flashing with the regularity of a heartbeat. It gave an eerie, strobe-like effect to the darkness. It was like they were trapped in a horror movie that wouldn't end.

A walker suddenly lurched towards them out of the rain-slashed gloom. Startled, Mika screamed and went down in the mud. When the walker leaned over her, snarling and snapping its teeth, Lizzie kicked hard in a blind panic. She kept kicking till the walker went somersaulting over the edge of the drop-off that led to the creek.

Mika scrambled to her feet. Still breathing hard, Lizzie pulled her to her side and both girls stood looking down. The walker was caught in the brambles halfway down the slope. It hung suspended in the thorns. It struggled wildly for a few moments, looking up at the girls and raging ferociously the whole time. Then suddenly, it broke free and fell the rest of the way down to the creek. The water was much higher now and the walker disappeared under the surface and was swept away.

"Let's go," she called to the other girls.

They had to find a safe place. And soon. But when she turned, what she saw made her stomach clench with fear. She almost gave way to panic then. She didn't know if they even had a chance of finding a safe place.

There was an open field before them, and it was filled with walkers. It was a deadly obstacle course and she didn't know if they had the strength to make it through to the other side. There were thick woods bordering the field, and no way of knowing what awaited them there. But there were no buildings as far as she could see and they couldn't stay here. They had no choice but to push on.

She heard growling above the sound of rain. There were walkers on the bridge close behind them. They had to move now. The snarling sounds were getting louder.

As soon as the walkers in the field saw them, they began to close in on them. Even in the darkness and the rain. Nothing seemed to stop them or slow them down. She heard Mika sobbing behind her. Lizzie herself didn't know how they were going to survive this. They were completely out of ammunition. They were weak from hunger and they were not, she knew, going to be able to hold out all night if they had to constantly fight off walkers. Not this many. Not in the open.

But she had been taught never to give up and the other girls were relying on her, literally for their lives, so she gritted her teeth in grim determination and kept plodding doggedly forward. They kept going, clinging to each other the whole time. They would live, or they would die, together.

They heard a distant roar above the thunder and the rain. The noise confused Lizzie. She didn't know what had caused it. She looked searchingly through the wet darkness. And then, far across the field, she saw twin lights. They were moving rapidly in their direction. Soon she was able to make out a tractor, a big one, with an enclosed cab.

The tractor stopped right beside them, vibrating loudly as the engine continued to run. The cab door opened. Lizzie looked up at the man leaning out into the rain. The ends of his hair dripped water on her and his features were pale but heavily shadowed in the tractor lights. From what she could see of them, his clothes looked strangely familiar, but she couldn't take time to think about that. Walkers from all directions were getting alarmingly close.

She lifted her arm and tried to shelter her face from the falling rain, but she still couldn't see very well.

"You'd better hurry," she heard the man call down to her. The engine was loud. He had to shout.

"Who are you?" she shouted back.

"Your only hope."

She stared at the hand that he held out to her. She hesitated only a moment longer before she grabbed that hand and prayed with everything in her that there was still such a thing as hope left in the world.

**_Chapter 4_**

Carol straightened and kneaded the small of her back with both hands. It had been a long night and she probably had another long one ahead of her. Taking care of Rick took up a lot of her time. He still wasn't much better.

She turned and caught a glimpse of herself in the oval mirror hanging in the hallway. As she looked at her reflection, she studied herself objectively. Her hair had grown out during what she referred to as her exile. It reached her shoulders now. She looked more like the young woman she had once been a very long time ago. A lifetime ago. She looked, and felt, more like the same hopeful woman who had given birth to a baby girl that had become her whole life.

Sophia's memory was still alive inside of her. There was no one else to carry it. As long as she had breath, it always would be a part of her. It was something that gave her life meaning. It gave her a reason to go on.

Grief had made her cut all her hair off. It was some ritual that she herself did not understand.

She turned as Rick called out suddenly. She knew he had no control over what he was doing or saying. But he needed to be quiet. He could draw attention from walkers when he was like this.

So she sat down beside him and calmed him with what was at hand. Her own voice. She continued on with her story, the same one she had begun telling him yesterday. She told him about her hopes and her dreams, even the old ones. She even told him about her disappointments and her fears and her loneliness. And he eased that loneliness for her a little while as he became the closest thing to a journal that she had ever had.

Later, when he had quieted down again, she went upstairs and attended to things there. Because she had been up all night, she lay down and closed her eyes, thinking it would only be for a few minutes. But she was exhausted and, without meaning to, she fell asleep. When she came back downstairs, she stopped short in the doorway, surprised to see the man sitting in a chair in the living room.

"I fell asleep," she said to him. "That was a dangerous thing to do. I didn't even hear you come in."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," the man said. "You look like you're exhausted."

He jerked his chin slightly in the direction of the man tossing restlessly on the sofa. "Who is he?"

"Part of my old group," she replied.

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. He looked back at the man on the sofa, and put some of the pieces together. In his mind he went back to that time when he had frantically tried to get a passing car to pick him up. The car had passed him by without even slowing down. This man had been in that car.

He had almost given up in despair then. If that wasn't bad enough, someone else had come along shortly after that and held him up at gunpoint, demanding that he hand over his backpack. All his worldly possessions had been in that bag and he'd watched helplessly from the woods as the thief was killed by several of the undead, hoping to get it back when he could. But the car had come back and taken the backpack before driving off again.

It wasn't one of his better days, but it wasn't the worst of the things that had happened to him since he had returned from overseas. He'd come back from one war zone to find himself in another. And it didn't take too long to learn that sometimes the living were even more dangerous than the dead. All too often, when faced with their own mortality, people rejected the old rules and made new ones up as they went along.

Carol interrupted his thoughts. "Were you able to find anything?"

"Just some canned milk," he replied. "I'll try again today. I wanted to make sure you were all right first. It wasn't my plan to be gone all night."

Lathan's gaze drifted over to the man on the sofa who was muttering something he couldn't make out. "I don't like thinking that you were in danger while I was away. Were you? In danger?"

"I tied him down just in case."

That's not exactly what he had meant.

"He's a big man," he commented. "He might have given you trouble."

Her eyes flew to his face. She suddenly understood what he was saying. "I wasn't in any danger," she assured him. She looked at Rick again. "And I wasn't going to take any careless chances. You know that."

No, carelessness could get you killed in an instant in this world. And it could be a death sentence for the people who relied on you.

"Any idea what happened to him?"

She shook her head. "No. I didn't even realize it was Rick until I cleaned some of the blood off his face. The bruises were swollen even worse yesterday."

He looked over at her. "Rick?"

She nodded.

He looked at her. Really looked at her. When he had first found Carol, she had been as cold and detached as anyone he had ever met. She had been completely devoid of any emotions. He didn't know what had happened to her, but she had closed herself off from her feelings and from the rest of the world. He suspected that not only had she been abused in some way, but she had been abandoned and betrayed. Badly. Her trust had been shattered.

She'd remained in her shell for weeks, staying with him only because she didn't know where else to go. But a change had come over her after they'd found the baby. The mother was dead. From walkers. And the baby was almost as bad off, too, from starvation, and so weak that it couldn't even cry. That's probably what had saved the baby's life. Any way you looked at it, it was a miracle that the child had survived.

Some protective instinct had brought Carol back from her own numbed existence. That emotionless prison that she had been locked in cracked wide open and gave way to a depth of maternal nurturing that had brought about an amazing transformation.

And when she was ready, she'd broken down and cried for days and let the whole story come out. About her abusive marriage. About the child she'd lost.

In part because of this man's decisions.

She had let herself be vulnerable, finally finding the courage to let herself face what she couldn't face before. And then the healing began. He'd found that along with the vulnerability, she had a steely strength, too, at her core. He admired her for that. She'd had to be tough, or she wouldn't have lasted this long. Not in this world. And now that she had let the two sides of herself come together, she was a whole person. Maybe for the first time in her life.

He was glad to see that. As an army chaplain, he had seen a lot of shattered lives. And it didn't always end well.

He fixed a meal for them from the canned goods he'd brought back. As they finished eating, she was thoughtful, staring down at her plate. She had slipped back for a moment into her habitual frown, the one that had always marred her face in the beginning. She was lured back, perhaps, by the shadow of the past.

Seeing Rick again must have brought up old memories. Probably some painful ones.

"You were pretty far away there for a moment," he said, teasing her and trying to draw her out.

She looked up, jarred suddenly out of her reverie. "Was I?" She smiled faintly. "I must have been thinking about how well canned beans and pineapple went together."

Her smile was back. It transformed her face, took years away.

He grinned. "I'm glad it's not nearly as bad as_ I_ thought it would be. Maybe tomorrow we can try the tuna fish and peaches."

"I forgot to tell you," she said, suddenly remembering. "I heard what I thought were military planes flying overhead last night."

"I heard that, too."

There was no way of knowing if that was a good thing. Or a bad thing.

There had been rumors when all this began that the military was involved in it somehow.

They heard Rick calling out from the other room.

"You took a risk bringing him here," he said. "We'd better take some more precautions. Just in case he- "

She nodded. "I've already thought of that. But I had to bring him here," she said softly. "I couldn't leave him to die out there alone."

**_Chapter 5_**

Overnight, Daryl had found himself a roommate in the barn loft. A very curious cat that seemed to be starving both for food and for attention. After pestering him all night, the cat was finally curled up in a ball, sleeping soundly against his belly.

"I never have liked cats," Daryl said gruffly as he sat up. "I'm just saying." But when the cat skittered away from him, he reached for it, picked it up and cradled it in his arms, petting it soothingly.

"There anything besides mice to eat around here?" he asked as he looked down at the purring cat.

He snorted under his breath. "You probably wouldn't tell me even if you did know."

When he was finally fully awake, he looked over the edge of the loft floor. No walkers. If he was lucky there was a farmhouse somewhere nearby. Chances were that any food would have already been cleaned out by now, but you never knew.

Food was uppermost in his mind. He needed to find some protein and fast. Water was even more critical. After last night's rain, that should be do-able. The tricky part was to find clean water. The last thing he needed was to make himself sick by drinking contaminated water and weakening himself even further.

The cat followed him down from the loft and sat looking up at him as he yawned and stretched his arms over his head.

_Meow_.

"I don't speak cat." Daryl scowled down at the cat and added, "You're wasting your time. I don't feel sorry for you. And you can't go with me. He stomped one boot at the cat to try and shoo it away. "I mean it."

The cat hid behind a post and Daryl immediately felt remorseful which irritated him to no end.

"Getting soft over a cat," he muttered under his breath. "Hell."

Two hours later, he was making his way across a muddy field with the cat sitting on his shoulder. A cat could be a liability. He knew that. The smart thing would be to get rid of it. But, damn. It had come with him this far. How would it survive on its own now that it was so far away from the barn? He wondered if walkers ate cats. If they could catch them, they probably would, he decided. Not that the scrawny cat would make much of a meal.

"Look," he said, pointing with his chin and mindlessly stroking the cat as he squinted into the distance. "A farmhouse."

Hard to know what he would find there. Walkers had been thick everywhere. He'd managed to avoid most of them, but he didn't want to spend the night in the dark in the open. Things always got dicey after nightfall. He started towards the farmhouse and stopped when someone came out of the front door.

A man. Not a walker.

The cat meowed.

"Shush. Let's be smart about this. That means _you_ be quiet and I'll do the talking."

There was every chance of a confrontation. And maybe there were other people inside so that he would be outnumbered. Not a good thing. Especially with that cat making itself at home on his shoulder. It could make getting to his arrows difficult if he needed to do it in a hurry. But there was no turning back now. Hunger drove him. Besides, the man had just turned his face to look in his direction.

The man had stopped what he was doing and he was watching intently as Daryl approached. The man didn't look hostile, but you never could tell.

"Hope he can tell that I'm not a walker," Daryl muttered to himself. That mistake didn't always end well.

The front door opened and a woman stepped out onto the porch. Daryl stopped dead in his tracks. The cat teetered as Daryl's breath left him in a rush.

DARYL LOOKED FROM THE MAN TO CAROL and then back again. He wanted to take her in his arms so great was his relief at finding her alive. But he held back. At that moment he didn't know which was harder. Showing his emotions. Or keeping them to himself.

She looked different. Softer somehow and more at peace than he'd ever seen her. Her hair was longer and she wasn't so pale and drawn looking. She had a blue dress on. Something soft. Something _pretty_.

He wondered that he had not thought her beautiful before. Because it was a beautiful woman that was standing before him now.

His gaze shifted. He tensed as he heard a noise coming from inside the house.

She held up one hand. "It's all right," she assured him. "It's not a walker."

But the noises were wild, unintelligible and disturbing. He looked questioningly at the two people before him.

"Come on in," Carol said and she held the door open for him. "You look hungry and we were about to sit down and eat."

**_Chapter 6_**

While they ate, Daryl related everything that had happened at the prison because it was the first question Carol had asked. Her next question was, "What about the girls?"

"I don't know what happened to anyone. But the last I saw of the girls they were all right. Thanks to your training," he added.

"The bus was full of people and it was making its way out of there," he went on. "We stayed behind trying to hold off the Governor's people."

"We?"

"Rick, Carl. Tyreese. And some others." He looked down at his plate. "But it was like a war zone. We lost track of each other. The fences were down. It didn't take long for the prison to be overrun by walkers."

"What happened to Rick?" she asked.

"A fight with the Governor. I couldn't get to him in time."

"And the Governor? Is he still out there somewhere?"

"I don't know for sure. I hope not."

"We heard the explosions," Lathan said. "But they were so far away that we thought it was thunder.

"We lost so many of them." Daryl named off the dead.

"And Judith?" Carol asked quietly.

"I don't know."

Carol bowed her head for a moment. When she looked up, she asked, "Who else?"

"Hershel is dead, too. The Governor killed him."

Daryl didn't see the cold acceptance he once would have expected to see in Carol's eyes. He only saw only a profound sadness there, and sympathy."

"Maybe we should look for the others," Carol said.

"I would do that," Daryl said. "But I don't even know where to begin."

"Rick made his way here," she said hopefully. "Maybe some of the others will, too."

"Maybe," Lathan said across the table, and then he got up to check on Rick who was moaning in the other room. They didn't say it, but they all knew why they checked on Rick so often. If he died, he would turn in a matter of minutes.

"I found Rick in the woods south of the house," Carol told Daryl. "He was slipping in and out of consciousness, but I managed to get him back to the house before he completely collapsed. I've done what I could for him." She gave a worried glance at the doorway. "But if he dies- "

"Then I'll take care of it," Lathan finished for her as he walked back into the kitchen.

"I'll do it," Daryl said. Somehow he felt like he should be the one. He had been through a lot with Rick.

He looked up at the ceiling. From the second floor, he had heard a baby cry. He gave Carol a questioning look as she pushed her chair back from the table.

CAROL REACHED OUT AND PETTED THE CAT in Daryl's arms.

"What did Rick tell you?" she asked quietly, without looking at Daryl.

He didn't answer her right away. "He made the decision on his own," he finally said. "I wasn't a part of that."

He searched her face in the dappled sunlight filtering through the vines that were clinging to the porch trellis. "I didn't even know what he was planning, until after- "

Carol kept her gaze lowered. Inwardly, it felt like a terrible weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Rick had done what he had done. But deep in her heart, hidden away, was always a lingering sadness. If she thought that Daryl had abandoned her, too-

"I would have come to find you," Daryl said suddenly.

Her face lifted when she heard the emotion in his voice. "Even thinking that I- " She faltered. She couldn't say the words.

"I'd stand by you," she heard. "You should have known that."

But she knew what Rick believed. She knew what he must have told everyone.

"You did what you thought you had to do. We've all done things we wouldn't have done before this whole thing started."

"You believed in me? _Still_?" she whispered. "But I need to tell you what happened."

"You don't have to do that."

"But I want you to know the truth."

He waited for her to go on because it seemed like she needed to talk.

"When Rick first accused me of killing Karen and David, he took me by surprise. At first I didn't know what to say."

"He told me that you had confessed," Daryl said quietly.

"He did?" She blew out a frustrated breath and shook her head. "I never confessed to anything. After the accusation, Rick started acting like he was having a conversation with someone else. Someone who wasn't there. I know this is Rick we're talking about, but the look in his eyes frightened me.

"I didn't know what to say after he made the accusation," she went on. "He went on talking, not making any sense. He'd had one break with reality where he saw and heard things that weren't really there. I was afraid he was having another one."

"So you never made a confession?"

"No. Because I didn't kill them."

"You mean it wasn't you?" Daryl was stunned by the revelation.

She shook her head.

"Then who- "

"I don't know for sure. I saw Rick dragging the bodies out and setting them on fire. And he knew that I saw him. For a long time I thought that he just wanted to get rid of me so that I wouldn't expose _him_. But after a while I began to think that he made himself believe that it _was_ me because he had to believe that. Maybe he couldn't live with the truth of what had happened, whatever it was. Maybe he had to get rid of me so he wouldn't have to be reminded of something terrible every single day of his life."

"So you were put through hell for nothing." Daryl looked to the side. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

"I should have been there for you," he said, looking straight into her eyes now. "But I was going to come and find you. I want you to know that."

"And I- " Her voice broke. "Kept waiting for you to come."

She bowed her head, fighting the tears.

"I'm here now," he said. He took her in his arms and held her as if he would never let her go again.

She was hesitant at first, but then she put her arms around his waist and leaned into his strength.

"We've come through so much. So much," she said against his shoulder.

"The important thing," he whispered against her hair. "Is that I've found you again."

The human spirit is indomitable. It has been that way since the beginning. People found ways to survive. And to communicate again. Word reached them that a rogue group of soldiers had taken over several military installations and they were getting information out to the people about how to stay alive.

With the baby in her arms, Carol looked up and saw something she hadn't seen in a long time. There was a plane overhead. It was a small dark speck against a sky that was the color of a robin's egg. She kept staring up, even after the plane was gone. Daryl and Lathan stepped out onto the porch. Soon they saw papers fluttering down from the sky. They were drifting like butterflies riding the air currents.

Carol handed the baby to Lathan. Then she ran into the yard and caught one of the papers in her hands.

"What is it," Daryl asked over her shoulder.

The sun was bright on her face as she looked up and smiled. "Hope," she replied feelingly. "Hope."


End file.
